Making medieval music

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Who’s Who

John began playing in his thirties, earning his spurs in various pub bands – principally the splendid and much-missed ‘Octavius Lupin’. Nowadays he prefers to let other people wreck themselves by carrying around several hundredweight of PA and amplifiers and has turned to the no less exciting repertoire of early music. He plays a variety of stringed instruments – saz, oud & dombora – as well as cornamuse and recorders.

Ruth began as a classical violinist and runs the Newent Community Choir. She effortlessly transferred across to the playing the rebec, and also adds singing and recorder playing to the Minstrels. She joined partly because she loves dressing up. On her first outing with the rebec, she could be seen wearing some sort of fox arrangement draped around her neck.

Fiona trained as a classical flautist, has a music degree and played with London orchestras. Medieval music is a relatively recent passion, but she loves the strangeness of the sounds and harmonies. She now sings and plays recorders and medieval flutes with Minstrels.

Jane is a classically trained musician who loves to dance. As well as the singing and drumming, Jane can be relied on to get a crowd up and dancing before you know it. All she needs is a lively Bear Dance or Horses’ Brawl, and she’s off gathering up the punters to join in.

Tim grew up in Japan and is now a local peripatetic piano teacher. He drums, sings and plays recorder with us. He has never really got used to the two-tone trousers, but perseveres bravely.

Guest drummer, Les, is a re-enactor most of the time but occasionally drums for us. He made the rebec, and was responsible for getting Fiona hooked on medieval music in the first place. Our name, Minstrels of the Forest, is an homage to his group, The Companions of the Forest. (http://companionsoftheforest.org).